A Mysterious Community by Dilshad C

In the writing of Yisroel (Israel) Ben Eliezer, most commonly known as Baal Shem Tov, he claims that Hasidic Judaism was invented by him while taking long walks alone in the forest at night where he received revelations about the Almighty God of Israel.

Mystical individuals arose, outside the Rabbinic establishment, who were known as the Masters of Kabbalistic mysticism, intervention and miracles, who sought to offer the downtrodden masses spiritual and physical encouragement, and practical healing. The image of these charismatic figures, often wandering among the people, became shaped by the Kabbalistic legend and stories.

I am, however, not here to dwell on how this branch of Judaism was created. I am here because I’ve always been fascinated by this community’s secluded life style. I am fascinated by them and by the mysticism that surrounds them, and of course their clothing, their hats and those long beards woven onto those wrinkled faces! So I decided to go to Stamford Hill, which is a little area of London with the largest Hasidic community in the UK.

I think it was one of the most difficult photo walks that I’ve ever done. Even though, when you are walking around that area you can see them all over the place, it surely was not easy to photograph them, as they move really fast and don’t like to be snapped; let alone the men, it took me two days of wandering, to say the least, to photograph a lady of the house together with its family, just to say how difficult it was.

Ovid once wrote: “There was a grove below the Avantine dark with shade of oaks and when you saw it you would say there is a deity abiding there”. This feeling of fear, awe, reverence and possibly uneasiness, which was felt by Ovid a millennia ago, was, quite earnestly speaking, also felt by me while roaming the streets of Stamford Hill today.

For the very first time I did not have the courage to stop them and to talk to them, maybe that very sense of awe and reverence stopped me from approaching them! I managed, however to have a word with one wonderful old man, who took the time to narrate to me a Hasidic story of Baal Shem Tov.  The way he recounted that story was almost hypnotic and then, as if nothing had happened, he just stood up and walked away, crossed the road as if he were an apparition, with fast moving cars passing around him.  He did not see them and they did not see him. He disappeared in the nothingness that our lives are surrounded by.

About Author

Dilshad Corleone

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